So it seems converting my existing crank isn't going to work, so now I need a new silver SS crankset, given I was hoping to only by a chainring. Its a retro project so on a square taper shimano bottom bracket. Any suggestions?

White Bros or Middleburn. Tim @ Sideways will help you. But how come you can't convert your old one?. A middle ring is a middle ring. Use shorter bolts or a bash ring.

It's a compact chainset, so the middle ring attaches via the granny ring so I carn't do it.

Leave the granny ring on then. Or attack it with a hacksaw.

White Ind will look best with retro

i have a new XT one. but with the price changes now i would be tempted by a middleburn square taper. look cool with the uno ring and spider

What do you mean it's compact? All MTB chainsets are compact these days.

How about going all space age with a Nexus, cheap from all over the place

I mean crank arms only attach to the granny, which is very small, therefore I carn't use a Surly ring..

You've lost me altogether now! The crank arms attach to the granny!?

I'm clearly in over my head, so I'll leave you to it!

Some old/cheap chainsets had rings that mounted in odd ways – eg the middle ring bolted to the granny ring which then bolted to the cranks or more commonly the granny attached to the middle ring which then attached to the crank.

Obviously not paid enough attention in all my years, never noticed such things on an MTB!

Been waiting for nearly 3 months for middleburn UNO chainset problem with rings I think?? All I get told is early next week, week after week!

old STX RC chainsets attached the rings in odd ways. that was back when standard mountain bike rings were 24, 34, 44 rather than the 22, 32,42 now. I still have one in the loft – looks good! Pace made some special rings for them – i think that with those they were lighter than the xtr of the time (around 1996 ish i think)

I have 2 of these chainsets from old orange frames I bought, one has a 22 granny and the other a 32… so would use the 32 only missing 2 teeth. Looks pretty good after some autosol…